Wheres me jumpa

Last week I saw a gig listing on Cluch.ie for The Puffincat Club. Obviously a comedy show but I wasnt sure what the format was. Seemed to be a sketch show made up of The Diet Of Worms and five guest comedians.I knew two of the comedians but The Diet Of Worms and The Puffincat Club were new to me.

The format turned out to be various sketches by The Diet Of Worms mingled with five, unrelated, stand up comedians. There is also some animation thrown in, see below. It makes for a very entertaining evening.

The Diet Of Worms are no doubt destined for their own TV show. The three (on the night) were able to make a room full of people laugh with minimal props and clever sketches. Their “That is soooo Galway” sketch had me in tears. Stand up comedians on the night were Bernard O’Shea, Kevin Gildea, Mark Baldwin, George Fox and Eric Lalor.

All the above for a mere €5!

U2 rocked Croke Park last night. It was a really impressive show, blew me away. Minnie found two of the cheapest tickets for U2 at Croke Park. We were seated in the Cusack Stand, upper tier. Not the best seats but the scale of the set and performance more than made up for it.

We got to see some of Glasvegas. The sound (or maybe Glasvegas) seemed really bad, they just sounded like a continuous drone. When they finished there was a long wait without any act for U2. The stadium slowly filled up. U2 would be 4/5 songs into their set before Croker seemed full to capacity. Typical Irish!

U2 started with some of their new songs and then got stuck into their oldies. The sun was shining for the start of the gig and it was only when the sun went down that stage really struck you. The huge steel claw poured out smoke and light. The screens expanded and contracted. The sound was definitely better for U2, so perhaps it was just Glasvegas!

Two hours flew by and U2 said goodbye. There is no encore! We waited for about ten minutes for one! This really was a great show. Show is the right word as it is much more than just a music gig. I was surprised at how many kids and lets say older generation were there. But I guess that is the advantage of a seated gig. If I was going again, I would definitely go for a standing ticket.

Not sure how many major tours U2 will have but I will be at the next Dublin date!

The past two years I’ve had free tickets for the Toys 4 Big Boys event For one reason or another I didn’t make it on those occasions. This time round, I decided to spend €18 on getting to see this event. I went with two friends, none of us had been before, we had all heard mixed reports.

What did we get for our money? Pretty much hundreds of stands selling any one / all of the following:

• Mini radio controlled helicopters (the ones that go straight up in the air and then fall straight down)
• Hand massager’s ( Yes we all know what they are really for)
• Blue tooth accessories ( Particularly the earpieces that some people insist on wearing everywhere and anywhere.)

This is no joke, over 50% of the stands were selling the exact same items. Regardless I was there for the more high end products ( Just to look at of course! ). Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of these. A handful of cars accounted for the “high end” products.

The only thing I found of note was an old Chips style police motorbike. It was for sale for 10k and it drew more than a few enquires. And thats pretty much it, oh actually there was also, lots of:

• Buggy’s, lots of buggy’s, and not the fun dune / motor powered buggy’s, no no, the mother powered buggy’s ( not exactly the big boys market )
• Bottlenecks, it was impossible to walk around certain areas
• Female products / stands, the Off The Rails show is next week, surely we could have had this event to ourselves?
• Products you couldn’t buy, there was a large amount of stands that were saying “oh fill out an enquiry form and we will get back to you”

To summarise, next year when this event is on, don’t bother.